June 13, 2008

Are We Winning In Iraq?

From 'FoxNews - Special Report w/ Brit Hume': The following is from the show that was aired on June 12, 2008. According to Krauthammer, Kondracke and Barnes, the answer is a resounding YES!...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJ. GEN. MARK HERTLING, MULTI-NATIONAL DIVISION - NORTH: With our Iraqi brothers in the four Iraqi Army divisions, which are part of the northern provinces, we have seen some significant gains over the last several months in the north.

MAJ. GEN. KEVIN BERGNER, MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE, IRAQ: Security operations continue to make progress, and the number of overall security incidents remains at levels not seen since 2004. These security improvements are enabling the political, economic, and social activities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: And so in the dry language military officers use when briefing, you hear further reports as they continue to come from the field about progress, military and otherwise in Iraq.

So where does this stand? Are we winning, as some are now claiming --- Charles?

KRAUTHAMMER: Yes, we are. I think it is unmistakable. The change in fortunes is remarkable.

We have had the government in Iraq take over Basra with the Iraqi army, which everyone had said was weak and feckless. It marched into Sadr City, the heartland of the Mahdi Army, took it without a shot. It is now engaged in the fight in Mosul, the last urban redoubt of Al Qaeda in the country. It is being routed and humiliated, Al Qaeda.

You have had the passing of all these laws of reconciliation, all of which have passed.

HUME: With the lone exception of the oil sharing Bill.

KRAUTHAMMER: With the exception of the oil sharing, which, in fact, is happening in the budget. It's a different process ---

HUME: There is not a Bill, but there is a program.

KRAUTHAMMER: Exactly. And the revenues are being shared as we speak. So all of this is happening, and Democrats are speaking as if nothing has happened.

I think McCain has an opportunity because of the utter disconnect between the way Democrats are describing the war in Iraq as losing or lost and hopeless and advocating withdrawal, and the reality on the ground for McCain to make a case on Iraq and to fight and win this election on Iraq against all conventional wisdom.

KONDRACKE: Look, Barack Obama sitting in the Illinois State Senate and the beneficiary of no information whatsoever may have been right that we shouldn't have fought this war in the beginning.

But then when he was here in Congress and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as Frederick Kagan of the AEI points out in this week's "Weekly Standard," Barack Obama proposed that we have no surge, that we be out by this March, last month, two months ago or three months ago, all of our combat troops out.

That was Barack Obama's considered judgment versus John McCain's considered judgment, which was to have the surge. What has worked? Who was right? McCain has been absolutely right and Barack Obama's judgment on this issue in which he had information was dead wrong.

Now, it's a good question, who do you want to be the commander in chief on the basis of that?

BARNES: When I hear these Democrats, they make me think of Rip Van Winkle, like they have been asleep for the last year, year-and-a-half. They are still talking about we're sending our troops there to get involved in a civil war. The civil war has been over a long time.

They talk about Maliki, the prime minister there being ---

HUME: Needing a kick in the butt.

BARNES: --- needing a kick in the butt. He didn't need a kick in the butt in Basra or to go into Sadr City, places like that. He has begun to establish himself, importantly, as a national, and not a sectarian leader.

When he sent the troops into Basra, you know what many of them were? They weren't Shiite as he is --- tens of thousands of them were Sunni troops. And the reconciliation has been incredible.

At some point Democrats are going to have to be seen as people who are totally out of touch with reality on Iraq, because what they're saying is the case is there is palpably not the case.

HUME: But are these facts, in your view, penetrating the public on this issue, Fred?

BARNES: I think they have penetrated the public, but they have not changed the public's view about whether the war was worth it or not. And by two to one they still think it wasn't.

KONDRACKE: I just think John McCain needs to pound away at this, whose judgment was right on the surge.

KRAUTHAMMER: These facts have not penetrated because the media have underreported the success of this story, and McCain is the one who has to make the case, give his speech, lay out the facts.